


Necessity

by ba_rabby



Category: Dark Knight Rises (2012), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Other, Torture, Violence, offstage sexual violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-09-01
Packaged: 2018-02-04 14:30:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 10,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1782391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ba_rabby/pseuds/ba_rabby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story is based off a prompt from the kink meme: "Bane knows that Barsad's form is highly unusual; likely a symptom of how truly damaged Bane is. He knows it's not right for his soul to touch other people, to kill them, so casually. And that the distance they can put between them is unusual even among members of the League of Shadows"</p><p>I'll be updating the tags as this story progresses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“It is much too far,” Barsad muttered as he cleaned one of his rifle’s parts. 

“You have said that already. But one of us must over-see Wayne’s arrival at the Pit,” Bane replied. 

“I could come with you.” 

“I expect everything to be prepared for the activation of the core upon my return,” Bane said and focused his attention on calculating his medical supplies. The changes in pressure from air-travel disrupted the flow of medication through the mask. He needed to be sure he had more than enough analgesic for two trans-Atlantic flights. 

He was startled when a palm rested against his bare shoulder. 

“Let me come with you. Please.”

Bane arched a brow and tamped down the quiver of pleasure that came from touching his dæmon. “I am surprised you find the distance troubling.” Bane’s gaze returned to the numbers, but he was unable to do the math with Barsad so close. “You so often play the role of wayward dæmon.”

Barsad snatched his hand away, “Don’t you find what I learn useful? Hasn’t the cause benefitted from my sharp eyes?” Barsad grumbled, “Half of the time I am away doing what you have asked me to.” When Bane continued scrawling without a word Barsad retreated to his work. 

Bane was accustomed to feeling his dæmon’s emotions: satisfaction, annoyance, anger. It was comforting. Barsad’s settled form might be abominable but he was still Bane’s dæmon. Bane was still a man. Now, he was distracted by the unwelcome anxiety emanating from the dæmon. Barsad reassembled the rifle with steady hands but his brow was creased. He had not exhibited fear since their days in the Pit. 

Bane sighed, “It will be a single day, perhaps two depending on the conditions.”

Barsad slotted components together with a sharp click. “Morocco is still very far.”

 

*****

 

The cat burglar brought Wayne to what Barsad had playfully called "The Theatre". As Bane bantered with the Batman, he could feel the anticipation from his own dæmon. Despite Barsad’s worries about safety, nothing got him more excited than watching Bane fight. When he pummelled Wayne’s cowl apart, the feeling coming from Barsad was akin to arousal. 

Had it not been for Talia’s wishes, Barsad would have watched Wayne die through his riflescope. It would have been so easy. 

Admittedly, breaking Wayne had been easy as well. 

 

*****

 

The League members averted their gaze when Barsad picked up Wayne’s serpent dæmon. The creature had slid from the confines of the Batman suit once it had been peeled off the man. Bane grimaced behind his mask when Barsad took hold of Wayne’s bare arm to drug him. 

When he had completed his tasks, Barsad snapped to attention, “You will be back by tomorrow, yes?”

“The day after most likely,” Bane replied. Barsad scowled but did not ask to join him again, not in public. There was frustration and anger in him now. “You will oversee the apportioning of the armoury while I am away,” Bane added. 

Barsad nodded and his anger abated. Bane could not sense the pleasure that usually suffused Barsad when he was given a new tool, but hopefully the task would distract him from fretting. Bane could not afford to be distracted by his dæmon’s emotions while he was traveling. Returning to the Pit would be taxing enough without Barsad’s anxiety weighing on him.


	2. Chapter 2

As soon as the van coughed to life, Barsad turned on his heel and stalked into the League’s dank living quarters. 

Several men and women were bedding down for the night. "You," He gestured to one of the tech specialists, “Come with me.” The recruit, Fatin if Barsad remembered correctly, scooped up her dæmon as she kicked her blankets off and stomped into her boots. She quickly fell into step behind Barsad.

The air in The Theatre was murky with pulverized concrete. That title, The Theatre, didn't do it justice anymore, Barsad mused. It was a...Colosseum. Barsad fought a grin at the memory of Wayne dropping solidly on Bane's thigh. They scaled up the lines through the blown-out entrance of Wayne Enterprises in silence. 

After the explosion, League members had swarmed through the dust and debris to secure the above-ground entrances. While Barsad tended to Wayne and his stupefied Blue Krait dæmon, he heard their jovial talk of what they would take from the armoury once the occupation was in full swing. They could make as much verbal claim as they wanted; enough of them had heard Bane's instructions to know that they did not have final say.

He pointed to the row of computers, “I need a list of everything within this Applied Sciences department. And its location.”

The ferret dæmon flexed along Fatin's shoulder and gave a mighty yawn. But the woman nodded once and wiped off the grit from the workstation before taking a seat and hacking in.

Barsad preferred Joachim’s assistance, but he was still in GCPD custody after the work at the stock exchange. As long as he was not transferred out of state before Bane returned he would be reunited with his brothers soon. The dæmon stalked through the storehouse accompanied by the overhead buzz of fluorescent lighting for barely twenty minutes before Fatin peered around a corner and waved at him, her ferret wrapped around her neck like a stole.

At the computer station she tilted the streaky monitor towards him, “The details you requested.”

Barsad leaned in and scanned the tables of military code-names and descriptors. “Good. I will need a hard copy.”

She rubbed a hand over her shorn head with a wry smile, “All of this marvellous technology and there are no printers in this section of the building. I would have to go above ground to retrieve anything I want on paper.”

Barsad frowned, “Fine." His attention was already drawn to the database, "Get some rest.” She did not shy away from him when he clapped her on the shoulder, but it was a near thing.

Once he had a handle on the organization, his anger drained out of him, to be replaced by a flood of eagerness. He felt like a hero from the stories Bane used to read to him. Back when Barsad could curl in his lap as a rabbit, or a cat or, more often than not, as a fox.

Now, Barsad felt he was in Ali Baba's Cave of Wonders. Once he knew exactly what a thing was, what it was capable of, he could not resist handling it. Could not resist hefting the cold weight of the guns, or running his fingers over the slick dark surfaces of the vehicles. Could Bane feel his pleasure? Was he even aware of Barsad as he sped further and further across the ocean? 

Within hours Barsad had detailed instructions for the distribution of their new cache. By then, he could no longer ignore the drowsiness tugging on his eyelids. He passed written instructions off to Kojo when he came across him in the make-shift mess hall. The man’s wolf dæmon gave Barsad a curious glance when he, yet again, left without even a cursory glance at the stew-pots. The League had a culture of shifty-eyed and whispered gossip surrounding Barsad's nature. None of the members had any real idea, at least not those who were vocal in their opinions. 

No one discussed Bane. 

 

 *****

 

It had been four days since Bane left with Wayne.

The dispersal of the armoury was complete and the League was in stasis until Bane’s return. Although the League was ignorant of Bane and Barsad's true connection, Barsad was still second in command and his orders were taken with the full authority of Bane behind them. However, since Bane himself was needed for the next phase of the plan, there was nothing to be done but wait. Prepare and wait. 

In the time that Bane was away his dæmon had cleaned and serviced all of the rifles, sharpened the knives, rearranged their personal supplies, laundered all of their bedding, checked Bane’s pain medication, received more analgesic from his contact in the city, and reorganized the mask’s repair kit.

After the emotional mire that Barsad assumed resulted from the visit to the Pit, Bane’s predominant emotion was annoyance. So Barsad tried not to worry. Instead he found himself mirroring, and perhaps magnifying his man’s irritation. Prepare and wait. 

On the fifth night of Bane's absence, Barsad returned to their room to find a mandrill reclined on Bane’s bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is what I had in mind for Kojo's daemon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_wolf#mediaviewer/File:Canis_simensis.jpg
> 
> And this is a Blue Krait:  
> http://www.venomstreet.com/images/Snakes/BCan-001-M.jpg  
> I snagged the idea for Bruce's snake daemon from WhiskyRunner over on the kink meme.


	3. Chapter 3

Barsad shut the door behind him. The mandrill dæmon grinned and stretched out an arm to him in greeting.

“Cheri,” said Aasiya.

He stood his rifle by the door, then perched on the edge of Bane’s bed. City grit clung to the mandrill’s paw and it dug into Barsad’s palms. He untucked the undershirt from beneath his fatigues and dusted Aasiya’s hands and feet with the soft fabric. “Talia is well?”, he inquired.

“As well as can be expected. Ready to move on, now that Wayne’s manor stands empty.” Aasiya gazed up at Barsad, “We have not received word for several days, should we be concerned?”

Barsad shook his head, “An inconvenience.” Aasiya remained quiet so he added, “Marrakesh is bad this time of year.” The dæmons stared at one another before Barsad huffed and said, “He is not worried,” he grimaced, “or even excited for a fight. He is simply annoyed.”

Aasiya lay back with a hum and puffed out his chest, “How was he? With 'The Batman'?”

Barsad smirked and buried his fingers into the coarse white ruff over the dæmon’s sternum, “Impressive, as always.” He took his time relishing the other dæmon’s presence, the way his skin warmed Barsad’s fingers, the animal-musk of his fur and the floral notes that Miranda Tate favoured.

“And Wayne?”, Aasiya asked after some time.

“Impressively incompetent.”

Talia's dæmon chuckled and allowed his eyes to close, “Wayne is an arrogant fool.”

“His spine was broken over Bane’s knee.”

Aasiya’s eyes flew open and a grin crumpled the bright-blue ridges of his muzzle. “Go on,” he said. Barsad cleared his throat and regaled Aasiya with his recollection of Wayne’s trouncing.

By the time he was finished, the blue and red of the mandrill’s face were even more vibrant and his grip on Barsad was vice-tight.

“Talia will be pleased,” he said. His canines flashed as he grinned nastily, "What of Maerwynn?" At Barsad's blank expression he added, "The krait. Wayne's dæmon."

Barsad swallowed, “She was stunned.” Only close allies knew the names of one another’s dæmons. He swallowed again, “She was kept inside of the armour. She did not help him.”

“I did not expect her to. Useless thing.” Aasiya shook her head with a laugh. He turned back to Barsad after taking in his expression he said cautiously, “We discussed the possibility, cheri.”

He hummed. Yes, the ‘possibility’. Before Aasiya could say more, there was a knock on the door and he dropped Barsad’s arm.

Barsad stood, blinking to mentally switch from Darija to the language the League used, “Enter.”

Kojo came in, bringing with him the smells of garlic and lard-fried onions. Barsad felt a clench of hunger that signalled Bane had not eaten in some time. Kojo inclined his head to Talia’s dæmon then turned his attention to Barsad, “We received word that the flight will arrive in twelve hours.”

Barsad nodded and they hammered out the logistics of smuggling Bane back into the city. The dæmon had Kojo shut the door in order to be heard over the clatter of cutlery that came from down the hall. Aasiya and Kojo’s dæmon reacquainted themselves: polite nose touches, murmured conversation. The wolf dæmon’s russet tail dusted briefly against Aasiya’s olive-cast flank. Barsad wanted to pull it out from the root.

He ended the conversation and added, “Remind Pavel of his family’s safety.” He gave Kojo a meaningful glance and the man nodded in understanding. Aasiya patted the wolf dæmon’s hip before she left with her person.

The dæmon plopped down onto his cot and unlaced his boots. Bane would sleep on the flight and it would benefit them both if Barsad did the same. Blessedly, Aasiya did not bring up his and Talia’s coupling with Wayne again.

“Folami tells me,” Aasiya said in Darija, “that you have been ill-humoured.”

“We do not have time for waywardness with Bane gone,” he said as he neatly folded the red scarf Bane had gifted him.

Aasiya’s heavy brow lifted, “Perhaps that sort of thing would come from Dagett’s men. But surely no one from the League would drag their feet when we are so close to our goal.” Barsad unfastened the buckles of his vest in silence. “Could you have not gone with him?”, Aasiya asked gently. The dæmon draped his armoured vest over the back of a chair and focused his attention on the buttons of his shirt.

“The news showed that Joachim was captured, but what of Kojo? Olamide?”

Barsad yanked his undershirt over his head, “You ask me questions you already know the answer to.”

Aasiya sighed. When he spoke again, Barsad was naked and bundled in the coarse blankets, “Morroco is very far away?”

Barsad’s eyes flicked to Aasiya’s small yellow ones, then away. “The distance does not cause discomfort,” he muttered.

Aasiya stared at Barsad and Barsad glared at the ceiling. He did not relax again until Aasiya reached under the blankets, his only defines against the chill of the sewers, and ran his warm paw across his chest.

He shuffled close. “I know,” he crooned into Barsad’s ear, “I know. They do not understand, they never understand. But it will be over and he will be back soon, cheri,” Aasiya murmured. Barsad nodded. The mandrill pulled against his jaw, the callused skin catching in Barsad’s stubble.

“We will all be together again soon,” Aasiya whispered as he pressed his muzzle to Barsad’s forehead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Darija is the Arabic dialect spoken colloquially in Morocco. It is a kind of "pidgin" with influences from Arabic, Berber, French and Spanish. I only mention this because although "cheri" French in origin, it is used as an endearment in Darija.


	4. Chapter 4

Bane was weary when he returned to Gotham, despite sleeping for most of the flight. He stomped into their room with a bowl of food and pitcher of water, and was surprised to find his dæmon burrowed beneath a mountain of bedding still fast asleep. That explained Bane’s fatigue. 

He dropped his dish onto the table. The clatter jolted Barsad awake, his hair was sticking up in all directions. He grasped for the knife hidden behind the side table, his gaze darting around the room. When he saw Bane, he sagged with a huff. Relief skittered across his face before he rubbed at it blearily.

“What time is it?” he muttered. Bane told him. The dæmon groaned and stretched before scrabbling out of his nest to get dressed. 

Bane breathed in deeply to take in as much fumes as he could before he began the tedious task of removing his mask. He had not had a private moment for nearly eighteen hours and was ravenous. Moreover, the medicine was waning and all of the canisters needed to be replaced. Once the mask was off Bane found that Barsad had cut the beef and potatoes and vegetables into bite-sized pieces and was slicing the apple. Bane tucked into his meal and Barsad dragged the mask towards him.

The meat was salty and savoury, but there was little else Bane could detect; he could hardly smell anymore after years of wearing the mask. The moisture from the apple was welcome on his parched lips, though. 

The lightheadedness that had been plaguing him for the last several hours eased once he had a full belly. The pain never abated.

He leaned back gingerly and regarded his dæmon. “You were very pleased last night.” The mask gave a quick hiss as Barsad eased another new canister into position. “Before the air travel was arranged,” Bane clarified. The tip of Barsad's togue stuck out as he peered through the mask to tightened a hard-to-reach screw. “What happened?”

“Aasiya was here last night.” 

“Ah." For the entire time he had been away, the sole reprieve from his dæmon’s surliness had been last night. Only Aasiya would make Barsad that delighted. 

Barsad placed another screw into its slot and began slowly tightening it, “They know you are back. Talia will call a board meeting for tomorrow.” 

“Good. Is she well?”

“Fine. Anxious to begin.” 

“Of course.” He was about to tell Barsad of the delay, but his words were caught on his sharp gasp as a stab of discomfort raced up his spine. Barsad shot him a glance, then hastened to finish his work. 

Bane filled a cup with water from the pitcher, lumbered over to the room’s drain-hole and brushed his teeth. He flossed as best he could and washed his face with a slab of soap. The soap was bone dry in its dish. Barsad filled another glass and he and Bane swapped empty cups for filled ones until Bane had chugged all of the water. He donned the mask just as he was beginning to feel pain flood his lower back, making it difficult to stay standing.

Once the pain had subsided, Bane removed the back and wrist braces and stripped down. The water that fed into the room was hardly potable, but good enough for bathing. He washed briskly with the gritty soap. By the time he had dried himself, Barsad had stacked the dishes and was pouring over documents strewn across the table. 

“Did you bathe yourself at all while I was away, Barsad?” he said as he cinched his back brace. 

“I am not actually human, Bane,” Barsad sing-songed with his nose close to the papers. 

“You actually sweat like one, though.” 

The dæmon was about to retort, but Bane shook his head, yanked Barsad towards the faucet, twisted his hand so that the palm was facing upwards and slapped the soap into it. “Bathe,” he ordered, “You are not a cat either.”

Barsad gave him a sour look but stripped out of his clothing and washed quickly. 

Once he was dry, he fluffed his damp hair and grumbled, “It will take ages for this to dry, you know.”

Bane threw a quelling glare over his shoulder. The dæmon snapped his gaze away and sulked into his paperwork. 

While Bane was sorting through his small pack, Barsad said, “There is a Gotham Rogues home game tomorrow afternoon at the stadium.”

“Excellent timing.”

 

*****

 

Bane strode into the boardroom of Wayne Enterprises the next morning with his dæmon close to his side. “Good morning gentlemen,” he boomed. “So good of you to be here early on your weekend.”

The muteness of the board members was exaggerated by the sounds of the League members fanning around the room: heavy footfalls, clattering of armaments, the clicking of nails and the beating of wings from the other dæmons. The board members gawked as Bane scanned the room. 

“It seems” Bane said, “that some of your members are missing. Where are Miss Tate and Mister Fox?” The men’s eyes flickered to the lowered firearms but remained silent. Some eyed him up and down. Bane could not decide which they found more disconcerting: the weapons or his apparent lack of a dæmon. “Perhaps they are merely late,” he said congenially, smirking behind his mask. “It will be no trouble to wait.”

It was barely a minute before Bane heard Talia’s voice, “…but keeping the board members in the dark was not one of them.” She rounded the corner and halted, her eyes wide. Aasiya moved around her legs and stood before her. 

Bane inclined his head to her and Fox, “So good of you to join us, Chair, President.” Bane did not bother keeping the pleasure from his voice; it had been so long since he had last seen her. Not just her dæmon, but his Talia. “Now, we need only one more ordinary member of the board. Mr Fox, would you care to nominate?”

“No,” a elderly man stood and bundled his dæmon into his arms, “I volunteer.”

“Good man.” Bane waved a hand behind him and Barsad drew close. 

Fox’s raccoon dæmon was arched and snarling. “Where are you taking us?”, the man asked. 

“Nowhere you haven’t been before,” Bane replied. 

The raccoon dæmon’s eyes were bulging and she hissed and backed away as Bane strode past. Barsad would round up Fox and the board member. 

Talia would never be far behind.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter John Blake...

“She said ‘I’m not sure’, Comissioner.” Blake repeated. 

“I’m not sure?” Gordon ran a hand through his hair. “What the hell does that even mean?” There was silence, save for the beeping of Gordon’s monitors and the click-clack of his dæmon pacing the linoleum. He said eventually, “Everyone’ll talk if you put on pressure.” 

“Not if they don’t know anything, sir.”

Gordon raised an eyebrow. Blake hesitated and his dæmon, Mirele, stopped picking at her feathers. “She seemed chewed up about it,” Blake said. “I don’t think she liked what she saw,” he swallowed, “But I don’t think she could have stopped it either.”

Gordon’s nurse came in then, so whatever the Commissioner was was about to say would have to wait. Blake couldn’t even be annoyed at her, though. With his war-room face on, it was easy to forget that Gordon had nearly died from a bullet wound barely a week ago. The nurse hadn’t forgotten, obviously. She was one of their senior staff, her butterfly dæmon’s iridescence had faded with age, but she was still sharp. Her first task was to question Jim on how was managing his pain, next to remind him that he was welcome to more painkillers if it was becoming too much. She mentioned kindly, but with a glance to John, that Gordon needed his rest if he wanted to get out of there and deal with this mess properly. 

She was rattling off Gordon’s options for hospital cuisine when Foley burst into the room. 

“Excuse us,” he said dissmissively. The butterfly dæmon twitched on her shoulder, but she nodded and swanned out. As soon as the door was shut Foley blurted, “Sir, we just got word that a masked man has taken the Wayne Enterprises board of directors hostage.” Gordon’s breathing became laboured. “They let most of the members go,” Foley continued, “but they took three of them down into the sewers.”

Gordon shook his head, his hands fisted. “No more patrols. No more hide-and-seek. You get every cop in the city down there and smoke them out!” His vixen dæmon snarled at Foley’s dæmon making it crowhop with a snort to avoid her teeth. 

Foley winced, but said, “Sir, the Mayor doesn’t want a panic.”

John blinked. How could the the mayor not want people to “panic” when there was a hostage situation at Wayne Enterprises caused by the same bastards who hacked the stock exchange and bankrupted Wayne Enterprises! Mirele nipped John’s ear and he took a deep breath, holding in the hospital smell before he exhaled to a count of three. He interrupted Gordon’s glaring with, “We can say it’s a training exercise.” 

Foley looked at him, then back at the Comissioner who nodded. By this point, a flush was collecting along Gordon’s hairline and he appeared as though he was taking some calming breaths of his own. Foley was about to leave when he said, “Sir, I’m sorry I didn’t take you seriously.”

The vixen growled from under the bed even as Gordon waved in dismissal. Foley’s sow dæmon trotted behind the man as he retreated, her ears pinned back in contrition. 

Blake turned to follow but Gordon raised a hand, “Not you.” Mirele fluttered on Blake’s shoulder, nearly loosing her balance at his sudden halt. “You’re telling me the Batman’s missing?” Gordon said. Blake nodded reluctantly. “I need you to follow the Daggett leads.” Gordon regarded him then added, “Any way you can. You hear me? Any. way.”

“Yes, Comissioner.”

 

***

 

John had to hand it to Mirele. She waited until they got into the squad car before asking, “Why didn’t you tell him that you knew Wayne is missing from the house? Why just the b.s. speculation from Kyle?”

He rolled down one of the windows to let some of the heat out and said, “Because saying that I pulled off a B and E at the Wayne Manor looking for Batman would seem odd don’t you think? It was shitty enough that Miranda Tate caught us fucking around over there.”

“Yeah.” Mirele said slowly, then shook her head and continued,“The butler could have let us in.”

“And Gordon wouldn’t find out the butler’s gone because?”

Mirele rolled her eyes, “He’s not omniscient, you know.”

“No, but I don’t like the idea of lying.” Mirele gave him a look and he added, “You know what I mean.” He started the car’s engine, “And so what if Wayne’s missing. All Gordon needs to know is Batman’s gone.”

“You think this secret-identity bullshit really matters when the Prince of Gotham could be dead?”

“Pauper more like it, now.” John exhaled heavily as he pulled out of the hospital parking lot and onto the stand-still that was Gotham’s streets. “Personally, no,” he said. “But it’s his secret. I don’t wanna out him like that.”

Mirele butted her glossy black head against John’s wrist as he steered. “Kyle’s dæmon was so upset, John. That woman may think Bruce is alive, but her dæmon doesn’t. Or if he does, Bruce is in rough shape.”

John opened his mouth to reply, but had to swerve and brake suddenly to avoid an idiot dashing across the intersection “Fucking asshole.” John leaned on his horn. 

“Easy, Robin.” Mirele hopped onto his shoulder and ran her beak through the short hair at the back of his head. 

He allowed his dæmon to calm him for a few moments before he muttered, “Don’t sit up here, Miri. Some bozo runs into me and you’ll go smacking into the window.” He rubbed his temple, “Check the maps.”

She snorted, but leapt into the passenger seat and rearranged the city plans with her talons. “The closest site is on Finch and Elm. Daggett had some construction outfit set up there before he croaked.”


	6. Chapter 6

Fox and the board member hesitated at the elevator. But a glance in Barsad’s direction had them shuffling forward. All of the deamons plastered themselves along the elevator walls away from Bane and Barsad, even Aasiya.

The raccoon halted in her tracks when they entered the Applied Science Department. Her ears were flattened as she watched League members completing preparations. Barsad toed her with his boot. She hissed and scuttled to catch-up with her human. Fox scooped her up and cast Barsad a fearful but quizzical glance. 

Soon, they were among the League of Shadow ranks acting as Talia’s guard of honour. Barsad jogged ahead to handle the final detonation. He ran his fingers over the wiring, prodded the at the sweet-smelling blobs of C4 and waited. Bane clutched the collar of his jacket, widened his stance, and gave a minute nod. 

Barsad yelled, “Fire in the hole!” He ducked to the side with palms clamped over his ears. 

Fox’s dæmon was shivering, by the time they reached the reactor. Pavel was enthralled. His Grey Owl dæmon rotated her head this way and that when she spotted the device. 

“Turn it on,” Bane said to the captives. 

Fox shook his head, “I won’t do it.”

Bane pointed at Barsad. He brought the old board member to his knees with a twist of his arm. When he drew his handgun, the man’s dæmon growled.

“I only need one other board member, Mr Fox.” Bane pointed upwards, “There are eight more waiting upstairs.”

Fox shook his head again with pursed lips. Bane pointed and the board member’s terrier dæmon lunged at Barsad. It was a feint; no one’s dæmon would touch a perceived human, not even under threat of death. Regardless, one the League’s dæmons, a buzzard, snatched the snarling terrier into the air and flung her towards the room’s central drainage. The board member clutched at his chest and cried out, lurched towards his dæmon. Barsad cocked the gun.

“Enough!” Talia said. 

Barsad snapped the safety on. 

Aasiya’s ankles were soaked in slimy-looking water as he lumbered back with the terrier cradled against his chest. With her eyes locked on Bane, Talia strode towards the reactor’s activation scanner and pressed her palm onto the screen. 

She turned to Fox, her face a mask of desperation, “Lucius, you would kill this man and yourself. And barely even slow them down.”

The raccoon dæmon snarled and yowled when Fox, finally, placed his palm on the activation pad. 

The final board member scanned his fingerprints and Bane made a sweeping gesture to the reactor. “Go on. Do your work,” he said to Pavel.

Dr. Pavel’s dæmon bobbed on his shoulder manically. He stared down the fission core, peeled off his jacket, and approached it.

Bane turned to Barsad, “Take them to the surface. People of their status deserve to witness the next era of…” Barsad cupped Talia’s elbow and Bane faltered, “…western civilization.” 

On his way out, Barsad cut his eyes to Bane and caught a flash of longing in his gaze. The dæmon would catch hell for it later, but for now he relished Talia’s warmth through his palm. He could smell notes of her perfume: roses and tonka.

 

*****

 

Barsad did not release her during the elevator ride to the surface. Fox and the board member hunched away from Ekin and Lucja who were escorting them. They reached the ground floor of Wayne Enterprises and Barsad silently guided the trio of hostages towards the exit. The League had no use for them now, but Talia still had a role to play in the coming months. 

“You will not get away with this,” she said, her head held high.

“Oh?” Barsad replied. 

“The Gotham Police will put a stop to you.”

Barsad hummed and flicked a glance to the hostages to find that their deamons’ ears were pricked up and eager. Even the terrier, who was still huddled away from Lucja’s buzzard dæmon, seemed roused. Lucja and Ekin glanced at one another. Their faces appeared bland, but mischief sparked between their dæmons.

“Yes,” Talia’s shoulders were pinned back. Though her expression was stoic, Aasiya was bristling and puffed up to nearly twice his size. “I would be surprised,” she continued, “if they weren’t out there waiting for you this very instant.” 

They entered the expansive lobby and Barsad could see that outside…there was not a single officer. Talia’s shoulders slumped. He could appreciate the strategy behind her coupling with Wayne, now. Could see how fostering intimacy and camaraderie was a more powerful weapon than the direct hostility they had grown up with in the Pit. 

Barsad chuckled, “You are free to contact the police if you like, Miss Tate.” He pressed against the small of her back and coaxed Talia towards the exit. Ekin and Lucja were not as gentle, favouring the butts of their weapons to shove Fox and the board member away. “But I hear,” Barsad added with a grin “that the Gotham City Police are busy right now.” 

Fox and the ordinary board member stared at the empty street looking lost.


	7. Chapter 7

“Anything strange about the pourings?” Over the phone, Gordon sounded more like a man who’d been shot the week before. 

Blake glanced at Mirele who was still examining the city plans. “Honestly Commissioner,” he said, “I don’t know anything about civil engineering,” 

“But you know about patterns,” Gordon replied. “Keep looking.”

“Yes, sir.” Blake dropped the phone into his lap. “What do you think?”

Mirele fluttered to the other side of the map. “This could be a ring or something,” she said as she pointed towards central Downtown with the tip of her wing.

“What, by the park?”

“Yeah,” she said slowly. Blake flicked his eyes back the road without a word, but could hear the dæmon’s talons scratching on the map as she moved around it. “There’s also this one down south in Sandy Hook,” she added.

“Daggett got dibs on the stadium renovation last year, remember?”

“Right.” She sighed, “Ok. Well. That probably isn’t related then. Not that far back.” Blake pulled into yet another cement plant. Mirele clambered onto his shoulder and muttered, “I hope we get some answers soon.” Blake nodded, he was sick of dead-ends too. 

He flipped his badge at the worker lounging in the security booth. “GCPD. I need to speak with the supervisor on site.”

The guard replied lazily, “End of the day, man. Boss is about to leave.” Blake gave him an arch look while wiggling his badge and the worker trudged around to the gate to let Blake in. All the while, his grey swift dæmon fidgeted on his shoulder, casting baleful glares at Mirele. 

Blake was about to comment that the ‘boss’ should have time for police business, but hesitated when Mirele yanked on his hair. He turned and saw a familiar badger dæmon. “Hey!” He strode towards a stocky construction worker, the only one around if Blake thought about it. “That was you outside the stock exchange, right?” 

“When?” the worker raised his chin.

Mirele huffed beside Blake’s ear. 

“When?”, Blake replied. “When half the city’s cops were trying to pull onto Castle Street and your truck shut them out.”

“Oh yeah.” He smirked, “You’re that cop…”

“Detective, now.” Blake interrupted. Mirele tensed suddenly and her claws squeezed his shoulder. Blake continued, “And I’m not allowed to believe in coincidences anymore.” 

Mirele leapt into the air with a kaah. The man from the security booth staggered back to avoid her hurtling towards him. Blake managed to get some space between them and the security’s knife merely scraped across Blake’s jacket as the bird dæmons spiralled upwards.

The truck driver grabbed Blake, only to be elbowed in the gut. This time when the knife came arcing his way, Blake got sliced in his arm. The burn of it made him cry out and stumble backwards. Mirele yelled. The swift screamed. The man with the knife fell down.

The driver from the stock exchange put Blake in a headlock kicked out his legs. For a moment there was nothing but the eye-misting pain in his arm and the fact that he was being choked to death with a child-hood move. A black streak plummeted to the ground. There was a startled snarl and the arm around Blake’s neck loosened as the man gave a pained gasp. He threw his good arm up, his fist crunched wetly against his attacker’s nose. 

Blake lurched free, turned, stumbled, fell on his ass and drew his gun. He squeezed the trigger twice. 

When he opened his eyes the driver was grimacing as two dark spots dilated on his shirt. Then, with his mouth opening and shutting and his eyes rolled back in their sockets, he crumpled.

 

Mirele was chirruping and nuzzling Blake. “Robin,” she whispered. Blood was spreading and seeping into the dirt, its metallic smell wafting towards him. He scuttled backwards. “Call Gordon, John,” Mirele said softly. 

“Right.” He nodded, “Yeah.” He grappled with his cell-phone and tried to push himself up with his left arm. The pain from the knife sizzled up his shoulder making him grunt and it was several moments of panting and clutching at his wound before he could get off the ground.

Gordon’s phone rang and rang as Blake pressed against the slice in his arm. The badger dæmon lay stunned and covered in dust some distance away. She shuddered, fell still and dissolved. John jerked around to face some barrels stacked against the far wall. 

He took a deep breath to centre himself when he finally got through to voicemail. “Commissioner, I’m at the Fourteenth Street plant with one-”

“Two.” Mirele said. She launched herself from the ground swooped over to the barrels. 

John swallowed, “Two dead witnesses and a lot of questions. Call…”

“John!” Mirele said sharply. 

He gripped the phone by the speaker. “What?”

“You don’t need this stuff for cement do you?” 

Blake crouched and frowned at the labels, “Poly..iso…butt. Polyisobutylene.” He shook his head, scouring his memory for where he’d heard that word before. 

“There’s some black crap over here too.” Mirele was peering into a different barrel. “Smells plastic-y. Motor oil?”

Mirele must have felt the swooping in his gut because her gaze snapped from the black liquid to Blake’s face.

He jogged back to the cruiser Mirele soaring overhead. He averted his gaze from the security guard on the ground with a hand clutched over his heart, his face a rictus of pain. There was not a scratch on him. 

“Commissioner,” Blake panted into the phone, “they weren’t just making cement. They were making explosives.”

He yanked the passenger door open and struggled with the map before he laid it flat on the roof of the car. Blood smeared over the downtown core has Blake connected the hemicircle Mirele had pointed out.


	8. Chapter 8

The day had gone downhill from there. John and Gordon were worn thin after the the terrorist strike and their flight from the hospital. They managed to get scraps of news from the car radio and it looked like the city was completely screwed and completely alone. 

Once in his apartment complex, he’d shuffled a hoodie-clad Gordon past a handful of neighbours milling about in the lobby trying to figure out what was going on. The building’s elevator didn’t work. But, slowly, they made it up the ten flights to John’s floor with Mirele whispering encouragement to the vixen dæmon the whole way. They hooked Jim up with to another IV bag without much trouble. The cannula was still neat in Jim’s wrist from when they fled the hospital. It was simply a matter of changing the line and giving him a dose of pain pills.

John felt hollowed out from hurt and fatigue and dread, by the time he curled up beneath his threadbare blankets on the couch.

Despite his best efforts, one moment kept rearing up from the depths of his subconscious: that topsy turvy instant when the car had been blasted into a roll. Mirele had squawked and thrashed and rattled around the patrol car like a pebble in a jar. And John... John had been strapped to his seat unable to hold her, unable to reach her, unable to help her. 

He squeezed his eyes tight and let out a shuddering exhale, “Fuck.”

A cool beak trailed against his neck. “Robin?” Mirele whispered.

When he didn’t answer, just let the horror quake through him, she scrabbled around to nestle in the crook of his arm. 

 

*****

 

Gordon was focused on the television as John gathered supplies; he’d been like that all morning. If John had been in the mood, he would have made a joke about there being “hundreds of channels and nothing to watch”. It was almost true. Every channel everywhere was playing footage of the stadium: its decimation, the active bomb, the strange mad-man with the mask. But John wasn’t in the mood for jokes, so he left Jim alone. 

He stuffed a duffel bags with canned and boxed food (and instant coffee) and rummaged for anything else he could think of. Bandages, flashlight, tape, some rope (where did he even get that?), clothes, some soap, all miraculously fit into the bag. He felt like a reverse Mary Poppins. Mirele didn't contribute when John asked for her suggestions, so he ignored her in return. 

“I don’t know if Gordon and Eldride can manage traveling right now,” she said eventually. 

John toed to bedroom door closed and scrubbed at his face. “What are we supposed to do? Huh?” he whispered, “You think those terrorists won’t find us?”

“The ones they sent after Gordon are dead. They might not have…”

“You wanna take that risk? Really?”

“No. But…” She sighed, “Fuck, John. They’re in so much pain right now."

"He's got pills..."

"He got shot, John. We can't fix that.” She paced along the window ledge, “Not if it gets torn up inside. Hell, we don’t even know what to do with the stitching on the outside. Other than keep it clean. Going out there? Running? Shit. That bastard won't even have to hunt us down. Gordon will just wear himself to death." 

After a beat, John replied, “He wants to get in front of a camera. And we’re gonna help him.”

Mirele shook her head. “She doesn’t want that.”

“She doesn’t get the final say in…” he bit his lip and looked away. It was a long standing argument, wasn’t it? Who was actually in charge, the human or the dæmon? Who got final say in things if you and your soul didn’t agree? He scanned the room for more blankets. Mirele didn’t speak again.

She still wasn’t talking to him by the time John emerged from the bedroom with the bag slung over his good shoulder. He felt a twinge in his chest from her disappointment, but he wasn’t in the mood for her pouting. 

He said to Gordon’s back, “We’re gonna keep moving you, ’til we can get you in front of a camera.” He didn’t respond. John glanced at the t.v. and saw why: the footage had changed. The masked man, the news reports had called him “Bane”, was in front of Blackgate now. 

John was shocked to see him burning a familiar photograph. It was too small to make out clearly on his shitty CRT-tv, but he’d seen that shape enough times over the last eight years to know what it was. There was a massive framed version they whipped out for civic ceremonies. They would have put the photo up in the courtrooms and prisons and churches if they could. It was the photo of Harvey Dent with his tawny huntsman spider draped over his shoulder. Mirele swooped out of the room at John’s surprise, but landed on the back of the couch away from him. 

John shook his head and continued rummaging through the fridge. Gordon wasn’t going to listen now that Bane was doing something new and exciting. Now that the media had something to show other than the owl dæmon screaming as her man’s neck was snapped, and the wreckage of the stadium, of the athletes who survived the attack who were carted to ICU, the shots of those who hadn’t. John preferred not to look at Bane, thank you very much. The mask was weird enough, but Bane’s lack of a dæmon was fucking disturbing. 

Instead, John buried his head in the fridge and half-listened to Bane’s strange mechanical voice. “In the words of Gotham’s Police Commissioner, James Gordon…” Bane said. John glanced at the television again. Bane was taking a piece of paper from his inner coat pocket. John couldn’t see the Commissioner’s face, but fox’s hackles were raising. Mirele’s gaze ping-ponged between the pair on the couch and the lunatic in the television screen. 

“The truth about Harvey Dent is simple in only one regard-“ Bane began, slow and clear as though telling a bedtime story, “it has been hidden for too long.” John shut the fridge and stepped towards the couch. “After his devastating injuries, Harvey’s mind had recovered no better that his mutilated face. He was a broken, dangerous man, not the crusader for justice that I, James Gordon, have portrayed him to be for the last eight years.” 

“Oh god,” said a raspy female voice. It took a moment for John to realized that Eldride had spoken. 

Mirele hopped towards John as Bane’s words flooded the room, her anger evaporated. “Harvey’s rage was indiscriminate. Psychopathic,” Bane read, “He held my family at gunpoint, then fell to his death in the struggle over my son’s life.” Mirele gasped and John’s stomach plummeted. “The Batman did not murder Harvey Dent - he saved my boy. Then took the blame for Harvey’s appalling crimes, so that I could, to my shame,” Bane paused and stared out of the screen, “build a lie around this fallen idol.” Gordon lowered his head into his hands. The vixen dæmon whined. Bane’s eyes returned to the paper and he read slowly, “I praised the madman who tried to murder my own child.” 

It was like the whole city had fallen into stunned silence. There was not a sound from the television, no reporters clamouring, no crowds yelling, no car alarms, nothing. Aside from John’s own heavy breathing, there was no more sound anywhere in the whole world.

Bane’s lilting recital filled the vacuum, “The things we did in Harvey’s name brought desperately needed security to our streets…but I can no longer live with my lie. It is time to trust the people of Gotham with the truth, and it is time for me to resign.”

On the tiny screen Bane folded the paper and slid it into his jacket. He regarded what must be his audience at the prison gates for a moment then bellowed, “Do you accept this man’s resignation?”

The crowd’s call blared from the T.V., John blinked. Bane yelled something else and the crowd replied, like a bizarre call-and-answer cheer, but John only had eyes for Gordon. “Those men,” he said, “locked up in Blackgate for nearly a decade…”

“Denied parole.” Mirele cried out, shaking her head and digging her claws into John’s shoulder.

“…under the Dent Act you helped create. Based on a lie.”

Gordon dragged his hands down his face and said, “A lie to keep this city from burning to the ground.” He tilted his head towards John, but didn’t make eye contact, “Gotham needed a hero, someone to believe in…” 

Mirele barrelled towards Eldride. The fox bared her teeth and flattened her ears with a warning growl.

“Not as much as it does now,” John said. “But you…you betrayed everything you stood for.” Mirele took another pass, and Eldride snapped her jaws loudly. 

Gordon twisted to face John, “There’s a point,” he said, “far out there. When the structures fail you. When the rules aren’t weapons anymore, they’re shackles.” John folded his arms across his chest and Mirele reeled against the low ceiling. Gordon had to raise his voice to be heard above her caws and Eldride’s snarls, “They’re shackles John. Letting the bad get ahead. Maybe one day you’ll have such a moment of crisis. And in that moment, I hope you have a friend like I did.” Eldride caught one of Mirele’s wings in her jaws, John scowled at the discomfort. “To plunge their hands into the filth so you can keep yours clean,” Gordon finished. His dæmon gave Mirele a shake before flinging her away. 

The rook caught herself in mid air and took one more dive towards the vixen. John said, “Your hands look pretty filthy to me, Commissioner.” Mirele’s talons connected. Eldride yelped but didn’t snap back. 

***

Summer was barely over, but out on the fire-escape in the late afternoon John could already see his breath hanging in the air. He’d stopped panting, now he was just tired.

Mirele was a sullen dark form perched on the rail above him, “We could leave him,” she said. John gave her a black look and she peered straight back. “He forced Wayne into hiding. All that ‘I believed in Harvey Dent’ song and dance and the man tried to kill Gordon’s kid. His family left him and he still held on to that lie.” John gazed at the skyline towards the din in Uptown: car alarms and gun shots. “No John, look at me. What do we owe him? Really? I know you don’t like the Dent act.”

“I never said…”

“How many people have you cuffed? We’ve got the lowest arrest-rate in the force. Blackgate has turned into a roach motel and you know it. No one gets out of there, not with the Dent Act tagging every Tom, Dick and Harry with some kind of ‘association with organized crime’ rap. You knew it in your gut that it wasn’t right, but it was for a good cause. Right? Cleaned the streets, right?”

“We can’t just leave him Mirele,” John replied, exhausted.

“Why n…”

“It’s not right,” John shot back. “It’s just. He’s hurt and…It’s not right” Mirele opened her beak to speak, but John cut her off, “Look I know. Ok. Yeah, he fucked up. Christ! He fucked up. But we…” He pointed out to the city silhouetted in the distance, “I bet you can hear that better than I can.” She looked away and he pressed on, “This liberation bullshit is gonna get people killed. People are probably already dying. People are already…already…” he stared skywards, above the city, “becoming animals. We can’t just…We have to do what’s right. Ok? Gordon’s not a role model right now. But we can’t abandon him like that.”

Mirele’s beady eyes peered at him for a long moment before her wings slumped. “Alright.” She hopped into his lap and leaned against him, “Ok. We’ll deal with…God, we’ll deal with it later. We’ll just keep our heads down and survive. But, John,” she stared up at him, “I will do what I have to. You know that, right? I know, I know you feel bad about those men at Dagget’s and killing’s wrong, blah blah blah, but I’m not going to loose you. I don’t care about anyone else. I’m not loosing you.” She pressed her head into his chest.

He ran a finger over her pale bill, “I know, Miri” He scooped her up against his chest and buried his nose in the stiff feathers of her neck. “I know. We’ll make it. I promise.”


	9. Chapter 9

They had lost track of Gordon. 

Bane’s speech at Blackgate had turned the Comissioner into pariah; he would not be safe on the streets of Gotham now. But Bane did not like loose ends. The League had been so concentrated on the events at the stadium and the bridges and the main strike zone, they had been so certain that Gordon would be easily neutralized, that no one from their side observed what happened to the Comissioner after the botched assassination.

Bane had been furious when told that those sent to kill Gordon had failed. But the men who failed in their duty were dead, so there was no one to punish and his anger rattled around inside of him impotently until Barsad had to leave him. It was dawn of the next day when the dæmon came back with emptied weapons and pockets. But his mood was lighter and it buoyed Bane up. 

Now, that the plan was in motion there was nothing to do but let the city tear itself apart. But instead of being able to watch it all until it was time to depart, they had to keep their eyes peeled for Gordon. Bane was not so foolish as to believe that the Comissioner was neutralized until someone brought him the man’s head. If he was able to defend himself while in ICU from a gunshot, he could defend himself when his health improved. 

Barsad was sitting beside him now and at Bane’s sudden flash of annoyance at the debacle, he said, not for the first time, “If you had let me do it, Gordon would be dead right now.”

“Where is all of your resistance to being separated, hmm?” Bane snapped. Barsad was right, of course. The men he had sent were underlings and cause was paying the price for Bane’s underestimation. “I thought you wanted to be by my side?” Bane said, “Now you say that I should have sent you away again?”

Barsad scowled and pulled out a knife to play with, “That was different.”

Bane grunted and returned to his reading his new acquisition. 

In the days following the activation of the core, the League had relocated to an abandoned hotel. They no longer had reason to hide and Bane preferred to spend the duration of the siege out of the sewer’s ache-inducing damp. And anywhere more accessible to Talia was welcome. She had not visited them yet, but her dæmon had appeared at the new location once. The mandrill came partly to be with Barsad and partly to praise Bane for the Comissioner’s speech, believing truly that it was a nail in Gordon’s coffin. 

Bane was not so convinced and he ordered his best officers scouring the city for Commissioner Gordon. 

There was a knock on the door. Bane slipped a scrap of paper into the book as he closed it and said, “Come.”

Kojo entered. He did not have the Comissioner’s head.

“I take it you have not found the Gordon?” Bane did not want to kill Kojo. He was an excellent officer and usually had the good sense not to come to visit with bad news. 

“No, sir.” Kojo replied. “But I was able to find out what happened that day.”

That was useful. “And you source?” Bane prompted.

“Gordon’s nurse, sir.” 

Bane felt a sliver of amusement from Barsad but pushed it aside. Instead, he raised his eyebrows at Kojo expectantly.

Kojo nodded and reported, “A young police officer came into the hospital shortly after our team, wielding a shot gun. The nurse heard shots fired…”

Bane cut him off, “They died from small calibre bullets.”

“Yes, sir. The Commissioner did shoot them. It had taken a lot of paperwork for him to be allowed a handgun in the hospital, it in fact. But the important part is that man with the shotgun took the Commissioner away with some medical supplies.”

So apparently Gordon did have allies in the city. Barsad said. “Is that all she said?”

Kojo’s lip twitched, “The officer had visited the Commissioner a number times since he was admitted. As often as the Captain of Police. She was usually sent away when they talked police business, but the officer did not join Foley when he left on the day the core was activated. Which explains why he was not trapped underground afterwards. Also, the man required stitches across his upper arm when he returned to collect the commissioner. That was done by the doctor on duty.”

Barsad was cleaning his nails with a knife when he asked, “You are certain she did not with-hold information from you, Kojo?”

“Certainly, sir.” Kojo’s lips ticked up to the side. Barsad did not smother his answering grin and the pair looked as though they were sharing a secret. Bane looked closer at the wolf dæmon, saw the relaxed angle of her ears and her sated expression. 

Bane scowled at Barsad’s encouragement, but said genially, “And while you were questioning this nurse, did you perchance find out an address of this man. Or the name of this officer. Or even perhaps the form of his dæmon?”

Kojo schooled his features, “She didn’t know a name. No. But she said his dæmon was a blackbird of some kind. Smaller than a raven, possibly a crow.” 

Barsad’s humour evaporated. He sat up and said, “What did the officer look like?”

“Young. White. Black hair. Not much taller than she was, so about five foot eight or nine. Somewhat slight.” Kojo looked uncomfortable now. Good. “She…could not say more about him,” he finished, his gaze averted.

Bane narrowed his eyes at Kojo, and the wolf hunched over. Likely she ‘could not say more’ because Kojo had gotten carried away. 

“Is there anything else?” He asked Kojo. “I would have expected more from you, if you felt the need to pay me a visit.”

The wolf dæmon’s ears pinned back. “Well we have a deamon,” Kojo said. “With your permission, I can tell the League and the recruits from Blackgate to keep a look out for someone of that description? I can interrogate the doctor. He may have heard something.”

“A white male with a blackbird dæmon who has a laceration and stitches that are likely hidden under his sleeves?” Bane arched an eyebrow. 

Kojo swallowed, “It’s a start. Sir.”

Bane frowned, but waved a hand in dismissal and Kojo trotted out of the room with his dæmon slinking after him. 

Once he was gone Barsad said, “I have seen a man of that description.”

“Where?”

Barsad stared at the ceiling as he spoke, “When the GCPD had converged on that bar in The Narrows. The night we caught Gordon. A man with a blackbird dæmon wanted to go into the sewers after Gordon but the Captain barred his way. He ran off. ” Bane was listening intently now. “When I went to collect the tracker, the Commissioner was gone, but I would not doubt that it was that officer who had rescued him.”

“Why?”

Barsad shrugged, his gaze still fixed on the memory, “He seemed dogged. Clever. If he knew about that drowned boy who washed out of drainage pipes, he could have put two and two together.”

“Is there anything else you saw?”

Barsad shook his head and blinked back to the present, “He is as Kojo said: young, dark-haired, slim. It was night-time and I did not get a good look at his face nor of his dæmon. She was a blackbird, but I could not say what kind, the lighting was too poor. I didn’t think it was important at the time.”

Bane picked up his book and muttered, “Sharp eyes indeed.”

“But I would recognize his voice,” Barsad added hastily.

Bane huffed, but conceded that it would have to do for now. “Have Kojo give you the Doctor’s name and question him yourself. No mistakes this time.” He glanced at Barsad, “Do not get carried away.”


	10. Chapter 10

Gotham Central Hospital, where Gordon had been treated, was one of four hospitals in the city. It was no less busy for it. The staff were too overwhelmed to pay Barsad even a passing glance once he was out of his fatigues. They did not notice that the little face peering out of his coat pocket was merely a toy. 

He had a name, Kojo was not too heavy handed as all that, and very soon he had a face. At the entrance to the ICU was a board with the banner “Meet our expert team”. Dr. Prakash’s smiling portrait was three rows in. Perched on his shoulder was a weasel with yellow fur along its chin and belly. Barsad memorized the face and the dæmon.

The sun had not yet set by the time a Dr. Prakash walked out to his car with a woman in a suit. Her monitor dæmon lumbered into the back seat, tongue flicking in the brisk air. Prakash’s dæmon hopped into his lap. 

The next morning Barsad placed a tracker on the car. That evening he followed them home. 

At the door, Prakash and his wife were berated by an elderly woman in a blue sari and launched at by little girl in shorts. Dr. Prakesh raised his palms to the grandmother and attempted to console her and usher her back into the house, his weasel dæmon crouching and shuffling towards the woman’s tortoise dæmon. The wife scooped up the girl. The door shut as the girl’s dæmon, who was in the shape of a hound, nuzzled and huffed against the monitor dæmon whose lizard face remained expressionless. 

 

The house smelled of burnt spices when Barsad crept inside later that night. He wandered towards the scent and came across the living room. In the corner, there was an altar to a multi-armed deity he did not recognize, the remaining twigs of the incense sticks stood in their brass holder. Beside the altar, photographs hung on the wall. 

The first door on the second floor led to the grandmother’s room. 

The second door led to the little girl’s room though Barsad could barely see her. Her dæmon, in the shape of a leopard, or perhaps jaguar, was draped over her body.

Just as the child’s door clicked shut, the door beside Barsad opened, spilling orange lamplight into the hallway. The mother shuffled out of the room, rubbing at her eyes. 

She froze when she saw him, his gloved hand still on the doorknob and she and her dæmon launched themselves at him. Barsad cupped a palm over her mouth smothering her cry. She thrashed, but went rigid when Barsad pressed a knife to her jaw, fell silent when Barsad shushed her. Her deamon, olive and yellow-scaled, hissed but did not attack him.

“The girl is safe,” Barsad kept the blade to the woman’s throat, but cracked the door open with his free hand. The lamplight illuminated the grey mass of the girl’s dæmon, the restless twitch of its tail. “She and her dæmon rest peacefully.” The woman inhaled to speak as Barsad shut the door. He cut her off, “But if you wake her, I will kill her.” Her jaws snapped shut. Even her dæmon, arched and puffed up and furious, fell silent.

“What do you want?” she breathed out, barely moving her lips to speak. 

He walked her back into the bedroom and shut the door. 

She struggled again when he removed the knife from her neck. He twined his fingers into her hair and shook her. Her hair was as soft as Talia’s where it bushed against Barsad’s bare wrist. He shoved her away, she staggered onto the bed.

She parted her hair away from her face. Her gaze crawled over him, looking, searching. “You are with the Occupation,” she said. It was not a question. The monitor paced between them. Barsad looked at Dr. Prakash who was, despite the scuffle, slumbering with his dæmon atop his chest. 

“Why won’t he wake?”

“He…” she rubbed at her throat, “he takes medicine to sleep.”

Barsad nodded and leaned his hip against the dresser beside him. He pointed with his knife, “Wake him.” 

She didn’t move. 

He looked back at her and made to rise, “Perhaps your little girl will be more helpful?”

The lizard hissed and spat, but she clambered onto the bed and shook her husband’s shoulder. “Ravi,” she whispered. Her eyes flicked to Barsad and she shook harder, though she kept her voice quiet. “Ravi, wake up.”

The man snorted awake. “What,” he muttered. The weasel yawned but then she caught sight of Barsad and with a chirp of alarm nearly rolled off the bed in surprise.

Dr. Prakash reared groggily. “What is going…?” he bellowed, but his wife hushed him. 

“Amrita,” she whispered and the man’s eyes bulged. 

Staring at Barsad, Prakash said, “Did he…?”

“Not yet,” Barsad replied with a smile. The monitor and the weasel were murmuring to one another between the couple. 

Barsad pulled his attention away from the dæmons and back to their humans. Ran a finger over the spine of his knife. Said, “You treated Commissioner Gordon, yes?”

“I do not know where they went.” Prakash replied quickly. “He left. Some men came with guns. They…they were killed and Commissioner Gordon left.” Barsad stared at him and he rambled on, “I gave him antibiotics and painkillers and he left with…with…” His eyes darted around Barsad: his shoulder, his breast pocket, his boots. 

Barsad said, “Who did he leave with, Ravi? Describe him to me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. Thanks for the kudos so far. xoxo

**Author's Note:**

> This is un-beta'd so any con crit is welcome. :-)


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